MISSION STATEMENT

We are committed in word and action, both personally and politically, to justice and democracy at all levels, and
to the preservation and restoration of natural ecosystems in America and worldwide.

We are specifically committed to the realization of new models for achieving local, national and global security
that redirect the current wasteful and obscene levels of military spending toward the uncompromising and effective funding
of: health and education programs; an end to discrimination; the provision of full and meaningful employment; and an end to
poverty for all people.

We believe with Robert F. Kennedy, that the Gross National Product is a false measure of progress and must be replaced
by the quality of life as a standard for American achievement.

PDA PROPOSES A NEW STRATEGY

To achieve these goals, we dedicate ourselves to work within the
general framework of the Democratic Party and with sister organizations to create a new, democratic, grassroots-based, nationally
federated organization.

Through this organization we shall endeavor, over a period of years,
to build an unstoppable coalition of the hundreds of millions of Americans who would benefit from a taking back of our democracy,
our economy, and our institutions from the "moneyed interests" warned of by Jefferson and the "military-industrial complex"
described by Eisenhower: those who would rob from Americans our precious rights of informed self-governance.

Mindful of the continuing important differences between Republican and Democratic political values, yet fully aware
of how much better Democratic candidates and elected officials must be to save our people and our planet from destruction,
we dedicate ourselves to beginning the long, patriotic, nonviolent, and ultimately unstoppable process of transforming the
Democratic Party.

Toward this end, we will educate ourselves, our neighbors, and our fellow Americans to the demonstrable validity
of the progressive worldview, and mobilize our fellow Americans precinct by precinct, congressional district by congressional
district, state by state, first to take back the Democratic Party and then our great country from the global corporate interests
that currently dominate our lives.

PDA HAS A NEW PLAN

We will accomplish these goals through the dedicated and deliberate process of working with thousands of individual
and organizational allies to identify, within each local precinct or political district, supporters of civil and labor rights,
real environmental protection, women's rights, the rights of the poor, consumer rights, and the right to live life in peace,
free from racism, discrimination and institutional domination.

A message from William Rivers PittEditorial
DirectorProgressive Democrats of America

Thomas Paine wrote about days that try our souls. He'd probably be repeating
himself if he'd been in the Illinois 6th this week. Schakowsky, Durbin, Obama, Kerry, Pelosi and indeed the entire DCCC
decided that this was the week to throw their weight behind party-anointed candidate Tammy Duckworth, this was the week to
throw Christine Cegalis under the bus, this was the week to shut these pesky progressives up and elect a candidate whose sole
qualification for office is her ability to follow orders.

Right about now, you all are probably thinking about hanging
it up, about the futility of fighting the national party, about where and how you could better put in time and effort that
didn't leave you feeling like you've been kicked in the head. Nobody can blame you; hell, it takes an extraordinarily
devoted person to roll the rock up the hill full in the knowledge that it will probably roll back down over you.

Here's
the thing, though: this is good news. If Christine Cegalis was no threat to the DCCC's desire to manage things from
soup to nuts, they wouldn't bother lining up all these heavies against her. If Christine Cegalis didn't bring so much
to the table - her talent, her experience, her desire to affect real change, her progressive values - the DCCC and all these
heavies wouldn't be looking this way.

They are looking this way. You have all their attention. You are
doing amazing work, historic work, and the fact that they have thrown all this mess against the wall (hoping it will stick)
is proof positive that you are having an effect.

These are the times that try our souls, yes, but these are also the
times that change the rotation of the planet. In your hands rests the power to make political gravity reverse itself,
the power to turn down to up, the power to send all the old machine politics flying into space. You are part of a national
fight, one that is taking place from one side of the country to the other. We are all sweating bullets, we are all bulldogging
through the trying of our souls. You are part of history, and you are making a difference.

Civil War historian
Bruce Catton famously described General Ulysses Grant as someone who constantly wore the expression of a man who had made
up his mind to run his head through a stone wall. Make that your game face. The stone wall before you is weaker
than it looks.